I am a leadership development junkie. I read leadership books, observe
leaders at work, consult with leadership experts, and provide leadership
workshops and coaching myself. I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned
that’s relevant to psychologists as the leadership landscape shifts.

“Task-shifting.” In institutional practice, the need to
increase access for patients and cut costs in the face of some
health professional shortages are leading to “task-shifting” from
one health-care team member to another.

For example, any task that can be done by a nurse is no
longer done by a nurse practitioner; any service provided by
a masters-level clinician is no longer done by a psychologist.
Instead, psychologists function as supervisors, consultants,
clinicians for complex cases, innovators, evaluators, and
administrators of clinical or research teams or institutional
units. For these reasons, all our educational programs should
provide leadership training.

Mission, vision and values. I’ve come to see that writingpersonal mission and vision statements is very useful becauseit allows me to articulate my core values and refer back tothem when I need to make important decisions. I revise thesecommitments each January, and examine my actions to seeif they align with my values. As Robert Mager wisely said, “Ifyou’re not sure where you are going, you’re liable to end upsomeplace else.”One of my values is diversity, which is why I likeinterprofessional teamwork. Work groups have the bestoutcomes when they surface different perspectives and developa shared mental model. As Gloria Steinem said, “One of thesimplest paths to deep change is for the less powerful to speakas much as they listen, and for the more powerful to listen asmuch as they speak.”

Communication. In a period of rapid change, we need to
“overcommunicate” new information. How often have you told
a partner something and he or she later says: “You never told me
that!” This also happens repeatedly at work and at APA.

Repeating new information is different from arguing about
old information. Lewis Carroll said of having the last word:

“How many a controversy would be nipped in the bud, if eachwas anxious to let the other have the last word! … Remember,speech is silver, but silence is golden.”

New forms of leadership. Collaborative leadership is a
radical change for areas dominated by hierarchy, such as the
military and health care. I recently discussed leadership with six
military family physicians, ranging from a resident to the Navy’s
highest ranking family physician. These physicians uniformly
advocated leveling the hierarchy for teams to work well. All were
opposed to saying the leader of a health-care team had to be the
physician. They valued mission over control: They wanted their
patients to have the best possible outcomes and would yield to
anyone, independent of rank or discipline, who might help that
happen.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal expressed the same ideas in a talkon leadership: “No one is omniscient or omnipotent. Thingsare way too interconnected to run an organization that way.Leaders today facilitate the process. They are less decision-makers than decision-facilitators.”Back with the family physicians, I commented that themilitary has good leadership training and one said they weregood leaders because they knew how to be good followers.That reminded me of a 1988 paper by Robert Kelly in theHarvard Business Review, “In Praise of Followers,” in whichKelly suggested redefining leadership and followership asequal but different activities, based on roles rather thanhierarchy.

Finally, while our training as critical thinkers is a great asset,
sometimes we focus too much on what needs improvement.
Publicly rewarding good work is another important element of
intentional leadership.

As Edith Wharton said, “There are two ways of spreading
light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” Let’s
recognize and reward good work as part of spreading light and
inspiration. n